This is Day 358 of my “blog every day for 92 days” personal challenge. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe, next Saturday I’ll complete a full year of daily blogging for the first time in my decade and a half since discovering how easy it is to have a blog.
Will I quit shortly afterward, like I quit shortly after accomplishing a full 12 months of monthly Myke Phoenix adventures in 2014? Will the urgency fade, like the half-dozen novels I announced and have (so far) left unfinished? Or have I finally established a habit that will last until I drop the pen and the keyboard forever?
I imagine that all depends on me. I don’t have millions of readers to encourage me to show up every day, but even if I did, it’s still up to me to show up every day.
I do have other, probably greater, priorities. The deck needs restaining, I have bacon to bring home, and I really do love the novel that is slowly crawling out of the muck of my brain. Surely I should be devoting my writing time to that adventure?
Yes, but the daily ritual keeps the flame burning even when that flicker is the only creative burst of the day.
“You only fail if you stop writing.” That Ray Bradbury quote is affixed at the top of my computer monitor.
The novel, the poems, even the news stories and op-ed columns, come and go in spurts. The blog is the only constant, my proof that I can show up every day to keep writing.
So now it’s a point of — not pride — a point of perseverance, my little rallying cry to keep going, keep doing, do the best you can for as long as you can.
See you tomorrow, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.